α-Fluoroacrylic acid esters representing halogenated acrylic acid derivatives are useful as synthetic intermediates of pharmaceutical agents, polymers, optical materials, coating compositions, semiconductor resist materials, etc. and as monomers for functional polymers.
As a method for producing an α-fluoroacrylic acid ester, a method (Patent Document 1) has been known in which 3-hydroxy-2-fluoropropionic acid ester is converted to 3-chloro-2-fluoropropionic acid ester with thionyl chloride, from which hydrochloric acid is desorbed to form 2-fluoroacrylic acid ester.
Patent Document 2 discloses a process for preparing α-fluoroacrylic acid ethyl ester by converting an ethylene derivative to a cyclopropane derivative with potassium t-butoxide and a chlorofluorocarbon in large excess, and decomposing the cyclopropane derivative to produce an α-fluoroacrylic acid ethyl ester. As a method for preparing the ethylene derivative used in Patent Document 2, a method of reacting potassium t-butoxide with 1,1-diethoxy-2-bromoethane to desorb hydrobromic acid thereby to obtain 1,1-diethoxyethene has been known (Non-Patent Document 1).